This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Frederick Loomis, fully Sir Frederick Oscar Warren Loomis
Moaning over what cannot be helped is a confession of futility and fear, of emotional stagnation - in fact, of selfishness and cowardice. The best way to "snap out of it" is to stop thinking about yourself, and start thinking about other people. You can lighten your own load by doing something for someone else. By the simple device of doing an outward, unselfish act today, you can make the past recede. The present and future will again take on their true challenge and perspective.
Challenge | Character | Cowardice | Fear | Future | Past | People | Present | Selfishness | Thinking | Will | Wisdom |
True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm, and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.
Better | Character | Enjoyment | Philosophy | Time |
What is it that determines the Will in regard to our Actions?... we shall find, that we being capable but of one determination of the will to one action at once, the present uneasiness, that we are under, does naturally determine the will, in order to that happiness which we all aim at in all our actions: For as much as whilst we are under any uneasiness, we cannot apprehend ourselves happy, or in the way to it... And therefore that, which of course determines the choice of our will to the next action, will always be the removing of pain, as long as we have any left, as the first and necessary step towards happiness.
Action | Character | Choice | Determination | Happy | Order | Pain | Present | Regard | Will | Happiness |
Lynn Margulis and Carl Lindegren
New ideas have a hard time in science. They tend to be suppressed by arrogance - condemnation by acknowledged leaders in the field... Dogmatism restrains, iconoclasm liberates. Vanity, powermongering, avariciousness, pride, dedication, love, industry, sadism and most other attributes of people apply to science and to scientists as well.
Arrogance | Character | Dedication | Ideas | Industry | Love | People | Pride | Science | Time |
Age, when it does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally returns to the milky disposition of infancy. Time as the same effect upon the mind as on the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more conspicuous from the others retiring.
Age | Character | Heart | Infancy | Mind | Passion | Temper | Time |
The most infectiously joyous men and women are those who forget themselves in thinking about others and serving others. Happiness comes not by deliberately courting and wooing it but by giving oneself in self-effacing surrender to great values.
Character | Giving | Men | Self | Surrender | Thinking | Happiness |
If we crave for the goal that is worthy and fitting for man, namely, happiness of life - and this is accomplished by philosophy alone and by nothing else, and philosophy, as I said, means for us desire for wisdom, and wisdom the science of truth in things, and of things some are properly so called, others merely share the name - it is reasonable and most necessary to distinguish and systematize the accidental qualities of things.
Character | Desire | Distinguish | Life | Life | Man | Means | Nothing | Philosophy | Qualities | Science | Truth | Wisdom | Happiness |
Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
Character | Excess | Fortune | Mediocrity | Men | Pity | Witness | Happiness |
All experience shows that even smaller technological changes than those now in the cards profoundly transform political and social relationships. Experience also shows that those transformations are not a priori predictable and that most contemporary “first guesses” concerning them are wrong. For all these reasons, one should take neither present difficulties nor presently proposed reforms too seriously... To ask in advance for a complete recipe would be unreasonable. We can specify only the human qualities required: patience, flexibility, intelligence.
Character | Experience | Flexibility | Intelligence | Patience | Present | Qualities | Wrong |
Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven.
Character | Complacency | Deeds | Earth | Heaven | Humility | Looks | Nature | Past | Pride | Rest |
Procrastination has been called a thief, the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It is a murderer; and that which is kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul.
Character | Procrastination | Soul | Time |